Footprints on the beach
by PrehistoricCat
Summary: Connor returns to the beach where he spent time with his father as a child


**Disclaimer: Characters are not mine, no copyright is intended**

**A/N: Just a little ficlet I wrote over the Easter weekend sat in a caravan after an afternoon spent fossil hunting on Whitby beach. If you enjoy, please take the time to let me know.**

* * *

It was that weird time of day when the sky was still stained with the orange glow of the setting sun, but the almost full moon also shone brightly just above the horizon.

Connor had been sat on the rocks for some time now, gazing out across the flat ocean. He'd barely noticed just how calm it was though, his mind was elsewhere. It was almost 20 years since he'd last been here, and yet this particular spot had barely changed. The shops along the seafront had different owners and the cliff face seemed even more eroded by the force of the ocean, but it was essentially the same.

He closed his eyes and thought back to his childhood. He'd grown up not far from here, and every Bank holiday weekend his parents used a caravan that belonged to his Gran so that they could have a few days away and enjoy the sea air. Holidays were expensive, and it was all they could afford back then. He was supposed to be grateful; there were many boys his age who didn't know what it felt like to have sand between their toes, but nine year old Connor just wanted to be in the amusement arcades and play the latest video games.

It was Easter that year when everything changed, and it felt fitting that it was an Easter weekend that he'd chosen to take the difficult step in coming back. Connor's mum and Gran had set up their spot on the beach and look set to be there for the day. Connor had been told not to bother them; why didn't he go and build a sandcastle or paddle in the sea or something?

Boredom set in pretty quickly, but his protests fell on deaf ears until his dad finally took pity on him. "C'mon Connor, I've got something to show you." He beckoned for the youngster to follow him and like an obedient puppy, Connor followed. He had hoped his dad was taking him to the arcades or for fish and chips, but he was heading for some large, seaweed covered rocks at the base of the cliff.

"We're not looking at rockpools again are we, dad?"

"It's a hundred times better than that, Connor! This is something that is millions of years old!"

That certainly got Connor's interest and he picked up his pace, almost running to catch up with his dad. He'd expected to find something really obviously old; covered in cobwebs and hundreds of wrinkles, but when his dad stopped and crouched down to point at a rock wedged into the sand, Connor couldn't hide his disappointment. "Big deal! Even those starfish we found yesterday were more interesting than this." Connor turned to walk slowly back to where his mum and Gran were.

"You have to look closely, Connor. Not everything is what it seems. Come on, I promise you this is really cool."

Rolling his eyes, Connor turned back and dragged himself over to where his dad was crouched. "Can you see it?" He was scraping away some of the green algae that had gathered on the rock to reveal a shape in the rock. It was a spiral, like a snail shell. Connor nodded. "That's an Ammonite. Jurassic era, maybe Cretaceous."

Connor's eyes widened. 'Jurassic Park' was the film to see last year, and although he was too young to see it at the cinema, he'd seen the adverts for it and he thought it looked awesome. "That's a dinosaur?"

"Not quite, but these creatures were around in the oceans at the same time as those T-Rex and Raptor things in that movie."

Connor knelt down to get a closer look. "It's a fossil right?"

"Yeah, shall we see if we can dig it out so you can take it into school to show your teacher next week?"

"Can we?" Suddenly this boring weekend on the beach seemed a lot more interesting. None of the other kids had found fossils that he could remember. He'd be a hero. The next half an hour was spent with the pair of them chipping around the rock to try and get the Ammonite out in one piece. When Connor finally held the precious object in his hands, it felt like he'd just been given a diamond. He curled his fingers around it for a moment before putting it into his pocket, pushing it in deep so that it was safe.

It was to be the last quality time that Connor would spend with his dad. Hours later, Mr Temple began complaining of a blinding headache and took himself to bed. A visit to the local doctor the following day was the start of a nightmare six weeks for the Temple family - they said the brain tumour was inoperable and all they could do was make him as comfortable as possible.

When the Temples next came to the beach, Connor went off on his own to try and find the spot where they had found the fossil before. Through his tears, he had found another and tried to get it out, but all he had was his fingers and eventually his mother found him curled in a ball sobbing hard in frustration and grief. He'd never felt so alone as he did right then; his mother just didn't understand why getting the fossil was so important and she'd decided there and then that it was too painful to come here again. The caravan was sold, and some of the money went towards buying Connor a computer for his bedroom.

Connor never actually got around to taking his fossil into school, but weeks later, he found it in his drawer in his bedroom. He could picture the day they'd found it so clearly in his mind as if it was yesterday, and he wanted to find out more. One of the things that came with his new computer was a CD rom of dinosaurs. As he loaded it into the computer, it was the first time he'd smiled since his father had died.

Opening his eyes, Connor blinked to adjust to the light and brought himself back to here and now. The sun had pretty much disappeared now and the moon was casting an ethereal light over everything. He sniffed and felt a tear fall down his cheek; he hadn't even realised he'd been crying and he wiped it away with the back of his hand before turning to try and look for Abby. He could see her silhouette as she walked along the shoreline, her boots swinging by their laces from her hands and her jeans rolled up so that she could splash in the water. Right now, he loved her more than ever. She'd sensed the moment they arrived that he needed some time alone with his thoughts, probably before he'd even realised it.. She knew him better than he knew himself sometimes.

He waved to let her know he was OK, and she changed her course to walk towards him. The glow from the moonlight behind her shone through her white blonde hair and it made Connor smile. Abby had always seemed like an angel to him, but she even looked like one now.

"All right?" she said softly, linking her fingers into his and sitting beside him.

"Yeah."

"Ready to go? It's getting cold, and we promised your mum we'd take her some chips."

"We did, you're right. And the nurses will have a hell of a job getting her to go to bed until we've taken them to her, so we'd better get a move on." He tightened his grip of Abby's hand and together they walked back towards the huge stone steps carved into the cliff side that led up to the car park.

"Race you back to the car!" Abby said and she was off several paces ahead before Connor had even realised.

"Cheat!" he called after her, laughing. The moonlight caught the ring on Abby's hand; the ring that Connor had worn around his neck from the day his father died until Abby had asked him to marry her. He'd never seen it glint like that and Connor saw it as a sign from his father that he approved of how things had progressed in his son's life.

Connor glanced back at the beach. The spot where he'd been sitting was pretty much the same place that he and his father had found that first fossil, and leading from it were two sets of footprints side by side. He swallowed down the lump forming in his throat and smiled at the new picture forming in his mind. The last time he was here, he'd started out on a long, lonely journey that initially was his way of shutting himself off from the pain of losing his father. That journey had ultimately led him back here, but now he wasn't lonely. Connor knew he'd always have at least one other pair of footprints beside his now, and maybe in the not so distant future he'd be the father showing his son how to dig Ammonites out of the rocks on the beach.


End file.
